I think it’s a bit over-ambitious and actually unnecessary to attempt to completely change how success is measured within the academic system.

Dr Sarah Amalia Teichmann is a Principal Research Associate in the Department of Physics and a Group Leader, EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute & WT Sanger Institute. A computational biologist who has discovered global principles of protein complex assembly and gene expression regulation, her work has been awarded several prizes, including the Royal Society Francis Crick Lecture and EMBO membership.

I think it’s a bit over-ambitious and actually unnecessary to attempt to completely change how success is measured within the academic system.

There are already objective measures like publications, prizes and scientific discoveries, as well as obvious indicators like leadership position, salary and the allocation of resources. But we do need to see a more diverse range of people embodying that success.

“If a woman wants to be successful in her workplace, she should have that opportunity and the freedom to choose to do that.”

For me it’s more important to focus on equality of opportunity and the freedom of an individual to make choices. If a woman wants to be successful in her workplace, she should have that opportunity and the freedom to choose to do that. However, when you look at the statistics, she can ‘lean in’ as much as possible but she is very unlikely to make it to the top, because institutional recognition and support is required in addition to achievements and a skill set. It’s equally unlikely that a man would really be able to choose to stay at home and look after the kids, as society would question his choices and there’s little financial support for paternity.

We need to look at how people inhabit the work and domestic spheres and challenge some of the historical assumptions about how men and women are attached to each. We are constrained in these boxes that we’ve constructed for ourselves. Nobody really gets to choose, and it’s a tremendous waste of human resources and capital. This isn’t just about women; it’s about aspiring to make things better for society as a whole.

“We are constrained in these boxes that we’ve constructed for ourselves.”

I am passionate about using policies to bring about progress and believe that shifting from maternity or paternity leave to parental leave could be a real game-changer. This could transform the culture for everybody, not just those who have children. If both men and women were equally likely to take time out, it would change the way hiring decisions were made. It would move us from talking about childcare as a women’s issue and start us thinking about how to effectively employ parents. I’d also like to bounce around the idea of some form of affirmative action. The current gender imbalance is so enormous that linking funding to target figures in some sensible way could sharpen people’s attention.

We need to enable women to keep working as efficiently as possible if they do have children. There are very simple things that are already embedded in UK law but need to be applied more consistently, such as removal of administrative duties while on leave. There are other things that are not a legal requirement but could make a huge difference. For instance, if you are a senior academic in the sciences, your research-group members can be significantly affected if you just disappear for months, so having meeting spaces where you can bring a child if on parental leave is critical.

It’s important to retain and develop women who can then become powerful role models for others. In psychology, it’s been shown that we overestimate the probability of unlikely events, as discussed by Daniel Kahneman in his recent book Thinking, Fast and Slow. So even if you only have a few women in senior positions, the benefit of them being there as role models for other women outweighs the actual statistics. They show that it’s not totally impossible for a woman to achieve that sort of success, even if it is unlikely.

Why was I able to make it as a senior scientist? From the very beginning, I’ve had all the academic badges of success with publications, discoveries, prizes and so on, but at the same time there were people who recognised this. Both my PhD and my postdoc advisors were extremely supportive and these people are key. They are the ones who write references, get phoned up for opinions and provide advice on which jobs to go for. They can also help to counter the potential for unconscious bias that seems to creep in at the postdoc level. That’s the stage where people are invited to apply for more senior roles, and perhaps fewer women are encouraged to do so.